


The Swift Mind Beholds

by innie



Series: Click [1]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23523121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Eggsy isn't the only candidate with a chip on his shoulder and a lot to prove.  (How Roxy and Eggsy met and became best friends.)[prequel to "A Collaborative Condition"]
Relationships: Merlin & Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Merlin & Roxy Morton | Lancelot, Roxy Morton | Lancelot & Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Roxy Morton | Lancelot & Percival
Series: Click [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688476
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	The Swift Mind Beholds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mepeters81](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mepeters81/gifts).



> For my Fandom Trumps Hate high bidder, mepeters81, whose continued generosity inspired me both at the time of bidding and again as we have all been going through this scary time together.
> 
> Title from these Edna St. Vincent Millay lines: "Pity me that the heart is slow to learn / What the swift mind beholds at every turn."

Roxy was in Waitrose, wishing she had something more exciting to do on her morning off than errands, when it happened. She dropped a packet of nutty muesli in her basket and became aware that a man — tall, broad, and slim, in an absolute _dream_ of a suit — was suddenly standing at her side, his startling proximity somehow not causing her internal alarm to sound. _That_ , she realised, was the point of a suit like that: he could be a madman roaming the shops looking for victims to disembowel, but he came across as perfectly proper, like a bank manager or some other pillar of society. "Miss Morton," he said, in exactly the voice she'd assumed went with such a demeanour, "might I have a word?"

He'd called her by her name quite deliberately, but his purpose, she judged, was not to frighten her. She looked around and realised that he'd found an ideal place for such a meeting: it was public and therefore at least marginally safer, and there was enough of a busy hum in the air that he'd be difficult to overhear. "You may," she said, "but do walk with me." She had other errands to run, after all, and couldn't be fetching groceries all morning.

His stride was smooth and courteously shortened to match hers. She took a few porridge pots off the shelf, dropped them next to the jar of black cherry conserve that was tipping her basket backwards, and kept moving. "An opportunity has arisen that comes but rarely, and never on a fixed schedule," he said. "I have identified you as the candidate I wish to put forward to meet the challenge, and was hoping to put the case before you and receive your answer by the time you depart from the store."

"I'll save my questions for the end, then," she said, trying to work out how she'd come to his notice. They threaded their way through the aisles, and as he verified her education and career history, they turned the corner and saw shining heaps of brightly coloured fruit. For the first time, he interfered with her task, plucking a bunch of bananas that were just coming into their golden ripeness out of her basket and replacing them with a single perfectly ripe one instead. "Ah, I haven't the time to wait for them," she said once she understood what the gesture meant. "Are you so sure I'll agree?"

He smiled at her then, looking far less like a bank manager and more like someone who could speak the words she'd spent the last dozen and some years longing to hear.

*

As she was loading up a jump drive with all the documentation she thought she'd need and the photographs she had of her mother, she tried to think through who might have been Percival's contact. She pushed firmly from her mind any consideration of how ridiculous it was that the spies employed by Kingsman took Arthurian codenames and answered to their own king. 

It was odd to have so little to go on — unprecedented for her brain and her instinct to be out of sync — for she felt certain she'd read him right and yet so much of him remained opaque. She didn't know how long he'd been a Kingsman, how he had come to the role, if he was married, if he preferred men or women, or even his name; he had offered only a code name whilst still managing to be scrupulously polite. But she knew he was an Englishman in his forties, whose accent was meticulously scrubbed clean of regional markers, and who appeared perfectly at his ease wearing cufflinks in a Waitrose at ten in the morning. Oxbridge was nearly a given, and he was around the same age as the Headmistress of St. Cat's, who was known to have sailed through Cambridge; Roxy had more than once caught Mrs. Philips looking at her with a considering eye. Or it could have been her own tutor at Oxford, Dr. Symonds, very nearly a parody of the absent-minded academic clad in tweed, who'd tipped him off. She supposed she could always ask him, unless that itself was the first test, to work out the unseen path by which she'd got there.

However he'd got his information, Percival had not struck her as the kind of man who misjudged people. Ergo, if he had sought her out to make her his candidate, she must have a very good chance of making a decent show at the candidate trials. She had a strong suspicion, based on some of his microexpressions, that he was intent on shaking up the traditions of Kingsman, of setting his own personal cat amongst the pigeons. Roxy could quite easily imagine the sort of tossers who'd normally be lined up as candidates, if Kingsman prized appearance and propriety to the extent that Percival's beautiful suit suggested; they'd be the chinless wonders she worked with, the scions she'd steamrolled at Oxford, and the moneyed wankers she'd grown up with, chauvinistic to the bone. 

Fuck that. She wasn't going to be anybody's trial balloon, the test case for whether women ought to be allowed, on sufferance, to compete as candidates on some distant future day. She was going to smash them all, win through, and take the empty seat at the Round Table in a beautiful suit of her own.

*

"Did you have a productive day?" Percival asked, with that ready courtesy that she could already tell, in only their second meeting, never deserted him. She liked that he understood her well enough to ask after her productivity rather than her enjoyment of their hours apart. At her nod, he nodded back. "Kingsman have arranged for a leave of absence for you from your work." Again, he seemed to read her thoughts from her face. "They believe you to have been seconded to MI5, just as you were previously seconded to the British Armed Forces." He lifted his teacup — he was either ambidextrous, or, more likely, left-handed for at least his most basic and customary actions — and waited for a response.

She picked a non-existent piece of fluff from her smart jacket. It was as close as she had got to the Army, and it was the great failure of her life that she had not made that final leap, over her brothers' sneers and her father's flat-out objections. _What would your mother say?_ had been his constant refrain, as if she were killing Patricia Morton all over again with her military ambitions; bad enough she'd insisted on getting her First in history with an emphasis on military strategy and warfare, which to him was as good as unsexing herself like a modern-day Lady Macbeth. "For how long?" she asked.

"I believe it will be permanent, Roxanne," Percival said, draining his cup and nonchalantly consulting his Bremont, though she didn't believe for a moment he wasn't aware of the gratification coursing through her at his matter-of-fact words. "Now, you're to report to the barracks by 9 pm for the start of the trials, so we've a train to catch," he said and stood, and she followed him out the door with her head held high.

* * *

Good God, but these other candidates were absolute tosspots. The one called Digby was sporting what had to be his school tie, the prat called Rufus was wearing every clashing colour under the sun, and the only other girl — who was _her_ mentor, then? — was dressed like a charity secretary instead of a competitor. And that toothy one who acted like he was in charge of the lot of them, Charlie, eyed her up and down like that was his goddamn right. She couldn't wait to thrash him.

Percival hadn't said how long the trials period would last, or how often the tests winnowed out one or more from the pool of candidates — he'd actually dropped not a single hint about the challenges ahead of her, and the implied compliment that she needed no such insight fortified her — but she hoped she wouldn't have to be in their company for too long. Roxy turned when she heard the door open and in walked the first interesting person she'd seen since Percival had delivered her to the door of the barracks.

The new arrival was broad-shouldered and his face took on a defiant expression when he saw all the assessing eyes on him, but between his skinny waist and the juvenile clothing he was wearing, he contrived to give off the impression of extreme youth, like he was someone's youngest brother who'd been thrown to the wolves. There were bags that looked like bruises under his eyes, indicating weariness more enduring than one night's sleepless excitement at being proposed for the trials could produce.

 _His_ mentor definitely couldn't have been motivated by nepotism; the boy had to look at her to learn how to stand at respectful attention when their trials master, a tall Scot named Merlin, began his speech, and looked at the rest of them wildly when that speech touched on the penalties for breaking confidentiality. How on _earth_ had he got here?

Best to be proactive, and she was always polite. He was quick enough to respond when she offered her hand and her name, and he had a startlingly sweet smile and absolutely no instinct for pretending he was what he wasn't; that readiness to admit that he was not of the same class as the rest of the candidates was a sign of either determined individuality or stupidity. It must be the former, as she could see the chip on his shoulder without much effort. _What_ was his mentor playing at, to leave him in just the clothes he stood in, and with no explanations?

She wasn't fond of the smell of smoke lingering on his athletic jacket, but only the bed next to hers had not already been claimed, and she'd rather have this Eggsy boy for a neighbour than any of the others. He settled in to write the requested information on the body bag, and she could see his grimly satisfied smile when he wrote _Dean Anthony Baker_ on the line for next of kin.

She wondered if that smile showed up on any of the cameras she'd spotted in various strategic positions throughout the barracks. She wondered if her own expression was equally clear as she inscribed her father's name for the record: _Samuel Philip Morton_.

*

Merlin returned to collect their body bags, empty suitcases, and any electronic devices that they might have smuggled in and not yet declared. The flurry of action this engendered was enough to hide his actions, but Roxy was watching the trials master like a hawk. From behind his camouflaging clipboard, he drew out a small bag of toiletries and set it down on Eggsy's bed. 

That proof that Eggsy had come completely unprepared was confirmation that he was different, the candidate to watch out for; he'd been thrown into the mix as either lower-class cannon fodder — to prove that Kingsman must remain the domain solely of the moneyed — or else as a _fuck right off_ to the entire organisation. Whatever the truth of it was, she was dying of curiosity regarding the identity of his mentor. 

Charlie, meanwhile, was loath to see his iPod go, and stropped enough that Merlin didn't offer him a safe with a biometric lock in the library, as she'd got for her mobile and her jump drive. Every candidate looked over at the awful row the prat was making but Roxy kept her attention on the competitor who deserved it.

She saw the moment when Eggsy first seemed to take in the surroundings instead of concentrating on the people. "What, no privacy?" he asked of Merlin's retreating back, gesturing uselessly at the tiled area at the far end of the room.

"If you wanted privacy, you should have stayed at home," Merlin returned, though she was sure she detected a degree of forbearance in his tone that had been wholly absent when speaking to Charlie. Roxy couldn't blame him for the difference.

"That ain't what I'd get there," Eggsy muttered, digging through the bag and coming up with a toothbrush. Roxy opened the standing locker next to her bed and fished out her zippered pouch of essentials, following him to the sinks. He must have expected to find toothpaste by the sinks, for he looked around in vain and accepted the offer of her tube. "Cheers," he said through a mouth full of foam.

"Wait one moment," she said, went to the waterproof cupboard containing extra towels, and flipped two hand towels over her shoulder.

She liked that he followed her with his eyes but still hesitated to touch her despite the implied offer. "Can I?" he asked when he was through brushing and spitting into the sink.

"Be my guest," she said, tightening her ponytail, and his fingers were quick and careful as they peeled the top towel off. He was definitely worth watching.

"Sleep tight, Roxy," he said, and headed back to his bed to find the pyjamas folded at the end atop the bath towel.

She was intensely aware of the scrutiny of Charlie and the other boys as she changed, but she'd lived in a dormitory since she was eleven, and if she could cope with Lara Wilmer and her malicious ilk passing comments on her early development, some toffee-nosed wankers were mere child's play, no matter how little she wanted to be changing — let alone shitting and showering — in front of them. She meant to remove her bra after they all went off to the sinks, but found herself too tired to bother once she was in a recumbent position.

She turned her head to look at Eggsy, the only puzzle in the room, lying on his back with his right arm tucked under his head. His duvet was pushed down to his hips, and she could see bruises the size of fifty-p pieces scattered along his side at the bottom of his ribcage. He didn't look like much of a brawler, but perhaps it was his pugilistic skills that had prompted his mentor to offer him a candidacy. His eyes were closed and his breathing was even. She did the same and was asleep before she could round up any more of her stray thoughts.

*

The water setting her mattress afloat was cold enough that her brain didn't require its customary two minutes to leave her dreams behind. Charlie came up with what was most likely the first good idea of his life and it was her brainwave that put his theory into practice. She dove into the water, cutting through it with a swift stroke toward the bath area, thankful that there were no doors to get through that would have been impossible to open with the weight of the water pressing them shut. She grabbed the nearest showerhead and began unscrewing it to get just a length of flexible pipe in her hands. The first hit of oxygen gave her a brief and sparkling high and she let herself float, awaiting whatever would happen next.

Merlin _had_ to have something else up his sleeve. She'd seen his eyes linger on her when he spoke, in that clipped and authoritative tone, about _risks_.

Eggsy pushed all thoughts of Merlin out of her mind. He was swimming the length of the room, first to the door and then back to the baths — how had his lungs not given out? — pausing to assess something but not noticing that she'd risen from her crouch next to the toilet, ready to offer him her loo snorkel. The reflection in the mirror showed her his expression, which boded ill for Merlin and was so grimly determined that his confused query of _showerheads?_ seemed like it had happened a year ago. The way the muscles of his back and arm bunched and released as he punched the mirror was transfixing.

His fifth punch broke through and they were all swept along on a wave to crash at Merlin's unimpressed feet. Her legs were tangled with Charlie's in an unpleasant knot of wet fabric and shivering limbs and she was looking down on Eggsy's heaving abdominals, the bruising she'd noticed before even brighter for the wetness of his flesh. It looked like he'd been — not grabbed, there was no spare flesh on him to grab, so _struck_ then — punched or kicked, deliberately, multiple times.

And Merlin, she decided, listening to his little lecture, could get fucking stuffed. Talking — tut-tutting, really — about _teamwork_ , when he must have seen that she had built on Charlie's initial suggestion and got those who'd bothered to listen to safety, that she'd been ready to share her oxygen supply with Eggsy, that Eggsy's swift action had spared them all whatever came next in the test.

But Eggsy confounded her again, sorrowful and repentant at the sight of Amelia. Quick to take action he might be, but he really didn't fit her idea — or Merlin's, likely — of what a Kingsman ought to be. He was going to get hurt if he kept being a bleeding-heart. _On his mentor's head be it_ , she thought even as she grabbed him and kept him next to her when dry towels were passed around and Merlin showed them where they'd be sleeping for the few hours until dawn.

* * *

She'd always been able to get by on not much sleep — convenient when half the cretins she was sharing the barracks with snored like freight trains, as had a few of the girls at St. Cat's — and she lay in the dark, trying to breathe deeply and lull herself into slumber. Amelia's bunk was empty and she'd turned to lie on her side facing it, when she heard a soft rustling behind her. Roxy peeked over her shoulder to see JB waddling up the length of Eggsy's bed to cuddle with his master.

How anyone could have mistaken a pug for a bulldog she couldn't understand, but she rather liked that despite his avowed disappointment at being landed with a dog that wouldn't grow much bigger, Eggsy still cared faithfully for the animal. JB might not win any awards for obedience, but his cheery disposition was clearly not something Eggsy wanted to beat out of him. Charlie and Piers, on the other hand, were on their way to ruining perfectly good animals, and she was surprised neither one had been reprimanded for it.

JB's burrowing into the warm crook of Eggsy's neck woke him, and even when she rolled over, abandoning any pretense of sleeping, Eggsy didn't feign indifference. He kept right on rubbing JB's rolls of fat and murmuring gently. Bruises and attitude notwithstanding, he clearly didn't have the objectivity needed to become a Kingsman.

He glanced over at her and shrugged as best he could whilst lying down. "Ain't usually a pup that wakes me," he said softly. "Always wanted a dog."

She hadn't lain awake with someone since she'd first started boarding, and she remembered how like a slap to the throat it had felt when Lara had repeated their late-night conversations to the other girls; her bewildered grief at losing her mum through a senseless mishap had been broadcast with casual malice. She wasn't going to make the same mistake twice and engage in whatever conversation Eggsy was looking to start — he was the competition, not a peer, and she was going to have to beat him one of these days to get to her prize.

"Good. Now you have one," she said, and shut her eyes.

* * *

It was _appalling_ how much food the male candidates put away, gorging themselves as if they had doubts about where their next meal was coming from. Only Hugo — who looked a little green around the gills — and Eggsy refrained from behaving as though their stomachs were bottomless bins. Eggsy ate with no finesse, shovelling food into his mouth almost mechanically, but he limited himself to one plate and seemed to favour finding a balance of protein, fruit, and veg over the towering piles of meat and bread the other boys constructed. Perhaps he wasn't a fighter but an athlete or a dancer; that would make sense of both his bruises and his diet.

Merlin appeared the moment she'd finished her melon and Eggsy had swallowed his last grape, wearing possibly the same jumper, trousers, and brogues he'd been sporting since the day she'd met him. She wondered if he slept in them as well, if he even bothered to sleep at all. Eggsy, she was interested to note, smiled at Merlin but the gesture was not returned.

"All scrubbed and fed, I see," Merlin said, holding their attention though his gaze was fixed on his bloody tablet masquerading as a clipboard. "What better time for you to navigate the obstacle course? Our record is just shy of thirty-seven minutes, but not a single agent requires more than forty-five."

She recognised the cue and stood, earning a nod from Merlin. "Lead the way, Roxanne," he said. "Pups stay here for now." 

Though he'd said she was to lead, she didn't know where they were going, and so stuck close to Merlin's side. He'd probably make an excellent ballroom partner; he indicated the path she was to take wordlessly, his body's movements small but clear. Before long, they were in a field that had been transformed by all sorts of equipment and traps. "Staggered starts," Merlin announced. "Hugo, you're first."

Merlin kept her back, not calling her name and not looking over at her as if he were unaware of her fidgeting. "Eggsy," he called, when there were just three of them waiting to be summoned. Eggsy took off, and he'd evidently been thinking about how to tackle the course, because he sailed through the first part that was all climbing and running and leaping. He was an athlete of some stripe, no doubt about it, but it was hard to reconcile those broad shoulders and thick thighs that belonged to a sportsman with the wasp waist that would have suited a debutante. Perhaps a swimmer? Merlin's eyebrows lifted slightly as he checked Eggsy's time at the first turn, and Roxy wanted to _go_ , to prove she could be even better, but Merlin still wasn't looking at her. "Piers," he called, and the git had clearly paid no attention at all, getting himself in trouble at the first wall.

"Roxanne," Merlin said, but waved her back from the starting line. "Kingsman are not used to female candidates," he started, and she could scarcely believe he had engineered an opportunity to speak with her privately at a time when she was longing to let her body take control of the situation. "We will not be treating you any differently or judging you differently, but you must let us know if we've overlooked anything necessary for your continued good health."

It took her a moment to understand, but she was _not_ going to discuss menstrual supplies with the trials master, who looked like his face might crack if he ever smiled. "Nothing comes to mind, sir," she said. His expression remained absolutely impassive. She had to say something just to fill the silence before he let her run. "But please, call me Roxy."

He nodded an acknowledgement and nodded again to set her free from the starting line, gathering the speed she needed to soar.

*

Roxy kept Boudica's leash in her hand as she slid into her slippers. She wasn't about to venture out onto the grounds, but surely she could explore the building she'd been living in for nearly a week? Merlin would have her stopped if she went somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, she decided, and left the boys snoring in their beds.

She always liked having a mental map of a place, and this one wasn't particularly difficult. It was mostly symmetrical, and whilst she encountered several locked doors, she was able to find a larder, a kitchen, a gymnasium, a single-occupant room with a tub and a toilet (stocked, disconcertingly, with the brand of tampons she favoured), and a cupboard the size of her sixth-form room that was filled with a variety of uniforms, all branded with the Kingsman K: more siren suits, pyjamas, swimsuits, and, forebodingly, what looked like jump gear.

She wasn't surprised when her poking round was halted, though she'd expected Percival to be sent to get her in line. Instead, it was Merlin, who really must not ever sleep, who caught her when she closed the cupboard door. From nowhere, he produced a key and turned it in the cupboard-door lock, then pocketed it and crouched to rub Boudica's fuzzy ears.

"Insomnia or habit?" he queried mildly.

"Habit," she said, just as succinct. She wasn't up to being more voluble with the man who'd said her time was forty-five minutes _and one second_ , necessitating that she run the obstacle course again until that extra second was shaved off. It didn't matter that Eggsy was the only candidate who'd finished the course with a time that wouldn't, as Merlin had put it, _disgrace an agent_ , and so got to sit out the repeat running. She was _better_ than getting lumped in with the rest of the boys implied — she knew it and knew damn well that Merlin knew it too. 

Well, if Merlin wanted to make an arsey martinet of himself, he was welcome to it, irritating as it was; she could rise above it. She did wonder what he and Eggsy had been discussing with such grave faces as they stood on the course's sidelines.

"It's good to have time to yourself," Merlin said, seeming to agree with the single word she'd spoken and not appearing to care what her taciturnity implied. "But you'll want to get some sleep; tomorrow's going to be a demanding day."

"Yes, Merlin," she said, eyes fixed on him as he stood, leaving her to navigate her way back to the barracks, Boudica trotting at her side as she'd been trained to do.

*

Merlin gave them all an hour in the library and a written assignment on the history and failings of neuro-linguistic programming, to be completed in what he claimed was their _free time_ , before herding them all to the gymnasium and leaving them to dress in t-shirts and tapered joggers. There was a sport brassiere in her locker as well; Merlin seemed to be making good on his promise not to single her out, and she firmly told herself that the extra garment was no more an invasion of her privacy than the presence of tampons or the fact that the workout clothes were tailored to her measurements. When she saw that all of the other candidates had been given athletic cups, some larger than others, she allowed herself a grin.

This was not the occasion on which she expected to meet Percival for the third time, nor was she prepared for him to give no indication that she was his candidate. Of course he wouldn't, but it still stung more than she was ready to acknowledge. He was slim and upright, his back straight as an arrow; his superb posture made his own tailored athletic gear look like it had been painted on over lean musculature. 

She could appreciate the aesthetics of him, but far more of her mind was devoted to cataloguing the work that had gone into building and maintaining a physique like that. She would never look quite so honed, but she knew from years of fencing that she had the discipline to make the sustained effort, and she didn't think she could honestly say the same about any of her fellow candidates.

Eggsy came and stood next to her, meeting Percival's assessing gaze with a courteous nod that she mimicked when those clear eyes landed on her. Merlin returned with another man dressed in athletic gear, and that was enough to get all of the rest of the candidates to fall in. The new man was taller and broader than Merlin, bulging muscles clearly outlined by sleek fabric, but it was the disinterested blankness of his face that alarmed her most.

"Percival and Bors," Merlin said, indicating each in turn, "will be demonstrating hand-to-hand fighting. You will be learning this as well as the basic skills needed to employ various types of weapons." He ignored Piers, whose impatience to get to the weaponry was already apparent. "Observe closely, because you will be fighting your own practice bouts today." He nodded at the knights and got out of their way as they began to stretch, eyes locked on each other.

"This's gonna be aces," Eggsy muttered to her. "Never seen anything like the way a Kingsman can fight. Like it was all choreographed." When had _he_ seen a Kingsman — whom he _knew_ to be a Kingsman — fight? Was that how he'd got here, as the victim saved by a knight who saw his potential?

The match began abruptly, and Roxy found they were moving at such speed that she couldn't take it all in, and she had to make a decision about where to focus. She kept Percival in her sights, deciding she was likely to be shorter and slighter than any opponent she might face as an agent, and certainly as a candidate. He seemed to be relying on his speed and staying closer to his sparring partner than she'd have thought desirable; it took a few minutes before she realised that remaining so close meant that his blows achieved maximum impact against Bors's solid flesh and also precluded the full extension of Bors's arms to do the same to him. 

For all she'd studied battles — aggression with rules, as Symonds had termed it — this was the first time she'd seen people of such prowess exhibiting their skills so that she might understand and learn. She was going to have to adapt what she was observing and remember everything she'd learnt from fencing about how not to leave herself open to blows that could incapacitate her. That up-from-under heel of the hand to the underside of the jaw looked like it would be a particularly fine addition to her repertoire. The match continued, with Percival taking on a defensive stance before manoeuvring to get into an offensive position, trading off with Bors, both of them clearly capable of swifter lethality than they could demonstrate here. Merlin called time and the knights, dripping with sweat, stopped the moment they heard his voice; their utter alacrity confirmed her suspicion that Merlin's was the word that all agents obeyed without question or hesitation. 

If that was the case, and Merlin was devoting all the hours of his days to the selection process, she needed to be on top form for however long it took — no more second tries at tasks she was capable of achieving the first time round. And no more sulking over Merlin's rigour.

Merlin paired them off to spar and she applied herself to the job. Within minutes, she'd taken Eric's measure and worked out how to beat him, eluding his clumsy grabs for her hair, her face, her breasts. It was a very nice bonus that she won the bout when she executed Percival's blow to Eric's jaw and stood out of the way when he dropped. What made it even better was that Merlin had stopped to observe her fight and quirked his lips as if he was considering smiling at the fact that she was the first in the room to achieve a victory.

Still panting, she turned to watch Eggsy and Rufus. Rufus was inclining more to wrestling than boxing as his default, trying to grab Eggsy and flatten him, but Eggsy was extraordinarily nimble and dodged the attempts. Percival was observing the match, and Bors's attention was drawn from the Hugo-Charlie bout to watch the spectacle that was Eggsy sliding out of the way and throwing swift, solid punches to Rufus's kidneys as the larger boy lumbered around. There'd be no surprises there; the only question was when Eggsy would have mercy and put an end to the fight, for Merlin, standing by with his clipboard, certainly wouldn't.

Hugo's match would be more instructive. Charlie had a far longer reach but Hugo was making him work for the victory, jabbing with scientific precision at Charlie's chest and arms. Bors was circling them, assessing them, and Roxy guessed that Hugo was his candidate. There was a thump behind her and she whirled to see Rufus flat on his back, Eggsy pinning him down, and Merlin making a note on his clipboard. 

Eggsy caught her eye and grinned up at her and Merlin. Percival crouched by Rufus and spoke quietly to him, and Merlin waited for Eggsy to get back up on his feet before drawing him aside and saying something in an undertone to him. She wasn't quick enough to get into earshot, but Eggsy looked very serious all of a sudden, though he mustered up a polite smile and handshake when Rufus grudgingly held out his hand.

"Are you all right?" she asked him.

"Yeah, good," he said dismissively, and she got the message about not prying. "Hope we get to do this again real soon, it'd be nice to plaster one across Charlie's massive twat face."

"Who do you think," she asked, indicating the other ongoing match, "Digby or Piers?" Digby was thick as a plank, but Piers was a complete non-entity unless he had a strong leader to follow. They hadn't bothered her for days, seemingly unable to work up the requisite misogyny without Charlie in the audience.

"Can't muster up a fuck to give," Eggsy said, surprising her; Merlin's news must have knocked him seriously off-kilter. "But I'd have picked you over Eric any day."

"And why is that?" she asked, hoping he wasn't flirting or flattering. She'd always preferred girls, but she could feel that Eggsy would be hard to deny if he ever took it into his head to make a move.

"Wanker like that, who's still sulking?" She looked over and saw Eric was sitting up with his shoulders hunched, radiating anger.

"Here's to better opponents, then," she said, relieved, and his eyes caught fire as he grinned again.

* * *

There was no such thing as a weekend for the candidates in Kingsman trials. Eggsy had shrugged when their first Saturday and Sunday proved to be as busy as the days before and simply said, "Poor Merlin." He'd had the misfortune to say it just when there was a lull in the other candidates' conversation, and Charlie took the lead, first miming Eggsy on his knees in front of the trials master and then Merlin, his head thrown back, chanting _Eggy, Eggy_. The other boys hooted and catcalled, and Roxy had felt so great a revulsion for them that she had had to take a step back, bumping up against Eggsy's unmoving strength.

There had been a day, a few years back, when a new colleague, Cyril, had intimated she owed her job title to making herself sexually available to their manager, and she'd been too choked by fury to say anything. Eggsy hadn't had that problem. "Ain't a blowjob in the world that can change how far off the mark you are at target practice, mate. Rather be a knob-polisher than at the bottom of the class."

Charlie's unattractive face had gone a dull angry red and he'd started forward, fist raised. Eggsy had stood his ground and Charlie, clearly wanting the advantage of a weapon against his unarmed opponent, had allowed himself to be "held back" by his sycophants.

Three weekends later, and two candidates down, Merlin walked in without ceremony and called Hugo's name. Hugo went apprehensively and they all watched his slow progress; no one could tell what this break in routine — singling one candidate out from the rest — signalled. Eggsy raised his scarred eyebrow at her and she waited until Merlin's back was turned to shrug.

Eggsy went back to cooing over his runt of a dog and trying to teach JB to beg. She held her tongue at Eggsy's continued failure to teach JB anything; the pug had cottoned on that his master was incapable of disciplining him and so had no qualms about disobeying him.

Merlin returned after twenty minutes to summon Rufus, then Digby, then Charlie, and finally her. She had been trying to guess what kind of evaluation would be handled individually in quarter-hour increments, and given her hands something to do by kneeling to give Boudica a belly-rub. Eggsy looked small and forlorn when he was the last candidate left in the room.

Just outside the barracks door, she stood with her hands clasped behind her back, letting Merlin try to discomfit her with his unblinking gaze. She knew Rufus and Digby, at least, would likely have disgraced themselves under such treatment, and was only surprised by the small smile he gave her when she'd withstood a minute of intense observation. When he began walking down the corridor, she hastened to keep up with his brisk stride and puzzle through his flat tone.

"Since you've been here you've received six personal emails, dozens of text messages, and three phone calls. All have been from a single sender, Natalie Norrington. All have been logged by a machine but not read. If you would like to read those messages and get in touch with your friend, you have fifteen minutes." He opened the door to a small private office holding only a desk, a chair, and a rotary phone. She eyed the red velvet of the chair and the printouts on the desk and waited to hear the catch, because this had to be a test.

There was a beat and then he spoke again. "Roxy," Merlin said, bending forward a little to try to catch her eye, "this is not a test. Nothing will be read into your reaching out or your choosing not to. I will return in fifteen minutes either way." He pulled the door shut as he exited, and the click of it propelled her forward.

Sitting at the desk, she forewent reading the compiled transcripts and consulted the papers only to learn which number to dial. She was curious about how the number she was dialling from would show up on Nat's mobile. Merlin had evidently worked some of his magic, because Nat squealed "Roxy!" the moment she picked up.

"Nat, hello," Roxy said, smiling at the familiar tone; Natalie had always been determined to wring every last drop of satisfaction out of her charmed life. "How have you been?"

"Can't believe it's taken you this long to ring me, you bloody cow!" Natalie said, the sounds of a party raging behind her. "Not quite the welcome into the family I was expecting!"

"What?"

"Connor proposed!" Natalie shrieked with exhausting ecstasy. 

For the life of her, Roxy couldn't imagine a woman with any acuity voluntarily binding herself to either of her brothers. It struck her all over again how little she'd had in common with the girls of her year, both at school and at uni. "And you said yes," she said. "Congratulations." 

She'd brought Nat home with her over the early May Bank Holiday weekend her last year at St. Cat's, and Natalie had taken one look at Connor and then interrogated Roxy mercilessly for the rest of the long weekend. He was six years older, with all the glamour of a flat and job in the City, but there was nothing appealing about him once his surface attributes had been disregarded. Natalie had heeded not a single one of her warnings, and Roxy had accepted that they'd never really been proper friends, just acquaintances and teammates, and had had to give it up as a bad job.

"So listen, I don't care what you've got on, you've got to be here for all the planning," Natalie was saying.

"I'm on assignment, and I can't just pop back," Roxy said, glad to have such an easy out.

"Why on earth are you giving your whole life over to that job?" Natalie demanded, with the flippancy of one who'd never worked a day in her life. "You should march into your boss's office, quit, and come home."

That house hadn't been _home_ since she was eleven, since just before her mother died and she'd been hastily bundled off to St. Cat's as a boarder rather than a day girl as her mum had wanted. She couldn't explain any of that to Natalie. "I'm being called, Nat," she lied, "but congratulations again."

"Oh, you are a love," Natalie said, already returning to the party before ending the call, judging by the drunken screams Roxy could hear.

* * *

They were down to the final six candidates. Eggsy was next to her at all of Merlin's lectures and the demonstrations of various knights' specialisations, but he stopped spending his after-dinner hours, which they could use as they saw fit, in the barracks. It was as if he vanished every night: he wasn't out on the range, where she went to hone her accuracy with various firearms; he wasn't at the kennel, making much of JB and the puppies who hadn't been chosen; he wasn't in the library, trying to learn more of the theory behind what Merlin demanded of them. 

She hadn't been expecting this sudden and repeated absence. She'd anticipated some gentle teasing about being named general for the war games they'd be running in two days. She'd even braced herself for him to take the piss out of her for the reaction she knew he'd felt when they were sitting side by side in Merlin's advanced class on neuro-linguistic programming. It had been an all-day session and she was grasping the underpinnings of the work but doubting its efficacy when Merlin focused entirely on her for an hour; she'd shivered with adrenaline, the rest of the candidates had vanished from her narrowed sight, and all she could think about was doing whatever would please Merlin best.

But Eggsy wasn't there, hadn't been for a few nights running. It was odd, to look up from what she was doing and not catch his eye.

It was odd, these days, to be surrounded by people and still feel essentially alone.

*

It was late, Boudica was sleeping — without the snoring the humans in the room were raising to nearly an art form — and the beds on either side of hers were empty. She wasn't going to feel any less restless until she got up and did something, anything, even if it wasn't precisely productive; she'd been pushing herself to excel and not let her guard drop for weeks now and she needed a respite of some kind. 

She walked without any destination in mind, and she found herself back in the corridor she'd discovered that seemed to be designed for the candidates' use when she heard someone trudging up the stairs a few feet from her. It would be too ridiculous to get caught by Merlin for the second time in the same place, so she ducked into an empty and unlocked room and peeked out. It was Eggsy, looking drawn and depleted, who jumped a mile when she stepped out to confront him.

His obvious misery took all the wind out of her sails at the idea that she could at last discover where he'd been slipping off to. "What're you up to?" he asked, evidently feeling no such qualms, and she noted that his accent thickened when he was in the grip of a strong emotion or fatigue.

"Wandering whilst the wankers are snoring up a storm," she said, though now that she was back in this corridor she couldn't help remembering the jump gear she'd found, and she shivered at the thought.

Eggsy nodded then peered over her shoulder. "Looks like you found the kitchen, Rox," he said, and she rather liked the way he'd given her nickname his own twist. On cue, his stomach grumbled.

"You shouldn't be skipping meals," she chided, rather than asking where he'd been at dinner.

"I can make up for it now," he said, brushing by her. The kitchen was spotless, every last surface gleaming, and there was not a crumb of food anywhere in sight. Eggsy sighed the sigh of the thwarted and deprived.

"Cut the amateur theatricals," she said, having followed him in and amused despite herself. "I found the larder last time I poked around."

He threw his arm around her. "I knew we was friends for a reason."

It had a nice ring to it. She took advantage of the fact that he couldn't see her face when she was scouring the shelves and fridge to ask, "Are we? Friends? Or just the best of a bad lot?"

Eggsy was right behind her suddenly, so she started passing him the bounty she'd found. "Hey," he said, and she turned reluctantly to face him, "I think so. I ain't had that click with so many people that I'm just gonna ignore it."

"'That click'?" she repeated, confused.

"Yeah, when you know that there's something there between you and that person, for good, for life," he said, haphazardly arranging the items she'd selected.

Had she ever felt that? Perhaps the closest she'd come was when she'd met Percival and sensed her life was about to change. "And you feel that with me?"

"Yeah, with my sister, an' Merlin, an' now you." It was probably taking advantage of him to let him speak so freely when he was clearly exhausted to the point where he had little control over his mouth.

She turned to examine all of the ingredients he'd laid out on the countertop, not saying anything about the fact that _Merlin_ had passed the same test she evidently had. "What can you do with this?" she asked.

A tired smile spread across his face. "What, the toff can't feed herself?" he teased, putting his nose in the air. "Your mum didn't teach you?"

He couldn't know what a maelstrom of emotions his words summoned; she was not going to lash out. "My mum couldn't cook worth a damn," she said, saw the implications of the past tense sink in, and let him decide how to respond.

"Cheese toastie?" he offered, rummaging through the cookware and holding up something that looked like a [mediaeval torture device](https://www.toyboxtech.com/shradha-trading-sandwich-hand-toaster-sandwich-maker-grill-hand-toaster-sandwich-maker-sandwich-toaster-sandwich-maker-nonstick-toaster-grill-sandwich-maker-nonstick-gas-sandwich-toaster/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4rHmy5Da6AIVBBgMCh0ZaAYmEAQYASABEgJaxvD_BwE).

"Ooh, yes. Brie and apple, please," she ordered. "I know just the wine to pair with it, too."

"Can't imagine that's not under lock and key, given the way H- some of the knights get through liquor," Eggsy said matter-of-factly as he wiped clean the interior of the device. He cut the green apple and the Brie into thin slices, put a pat of butter on two slices of bread, and assembled the sandwich inside the device before holding it over a cooktop flame.

"I think I clicked with my mentor," she said, surprising herself for bringing it up again when the subject had died a natural death. Eggsy threw her a smile over his shoulder and kept cooking. "He knew exactly what to say to get me here, and it's everything I wanted." She got up and filled two glasses with water. "What on earth did yours say to tempt you here?"

"Wasn't so much what he said as the timing of it. He got me out of a bad situation," Eggsy said, flipping the device over. "An' now he's laid up in Medical in a fuckin' coma and I can't show him I'm doing what he wanted, what he offered me." The sorrow in his voice explained exactly where he'd been all those lost hours, but not how he thought of the man who'd proposed him — did Eggsy have a bit of an infatuation for the man himself or was the yearning all for the new life that the man had revealed as a possibility?

She wanted to win that life for herself. But having now found him, she wanted to keep her new friend. There was no way to have both.

He put the toastie — more of a pasty than a sandwich, really, as the device had sealed all four edges shut — on a plate in front of her and moved back to the chopping board, where he sliced a pink apple and a sizable chunk of sharp cheddar. He snacked on the apple whilst toasting his sandwich, and despite the heat of it, she tore into her own. The cheese was lovely and creamy, oozing round the fruit that had gone soft and sweetly tart from the heat.

"I'm sorry about your mentor," she said, and his back went stiff just for a moment.

"Yeah, me too," he answered, finishing up his toastie and depositing it on the plate next to his few remaining apple slices. "But he got me here, so," he said, raising his glass, "here's to him."

"You got yourself here, I think," she said. "So to you."

"To the next Lancelot," he said, "as long as that's you or me."

"Cheers," she said, and tapped their glasses together.


End file.
